pleasure

Your question on how to convince an atheist there is a God reminded me of another question I have been meaning to ask.
**The necessity to have a childlike faith seems to hold true if one is to believe, as it seems the scientific approach will never lead there even if there is a God. (Well, maybe after xxxxxxx years of gained knowledge.)
**My question is, what is your opinion of why humans find nature so pleasing (if it was not something planned)? The type of thing that makes me want to lean toward belief is how we really enjoy the sound of the birds, they way the sky looks, etc. It seems extraordinary that chemical reactions, light reflextion, and random life happenstance is often so pleasing to our senses.
**Though I am sure you will mention numerous unpleasantries, I am wondering if you ever feel the same way in that it seems there is a certain harmony to the world the points to some sort of intent. ?

Atheist Answer:

The scientific approach has thus far been very good at finding alternative and, importantly, useful explanations for the supposed actions of gods. Once these explanations are known, to reject them completely without contrary evidence is unsupportable, and not just childlike but childish. (I'm not suggesting that you've done so, Celia.)

Which is easier: for nature to be shaped over millions of years just to be superficially pleasing to a single future species, or for that species itself to develop an appreciation of nature at its calmest and least threatening?

We find scenes of blue skies, green plant life and twittering birds pleasant because they usually indicate a non-threatening state of affairs. We've learned to distrust grey skies because they might sweep us away in a flood, or snow down and freeze us to death. If the plants are anything but green, something is killing them (drought, fire, disease, etc.) and might kill us too if we don't move away. Birds don't sing if they think there's anything around which might want to eat them, so their song tells us certain predators are absent and gives us a deep down feeling of security.

There is a certain harmony to mostly untouched ecosystems, and it is indeed fascinating, but it's based upon a set of life forms each of which has developed ways to survive the others. As you thought I'd mention, and as Darwin wrote, "Nature is red in tooth and claw," no matter how green it appears. That's why I used the word "superficially" above; many levels of violence are always just below the surface image.